'Divine Mercy Pete'

A good friend of ours in Liverpool is Peter McPhillips who serves Holy Mass at Our Lady Star of the Sea in Seaforth. Here we are with him in that beautiful church on his birthday in 2004. (His birthday is also the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul... hence the statue of St. Peter on the left of the High-Altar being decked out in his annual, liturgical finery!)Peter also runs the Divine Mercy shop on London Road in Liverpool. This has been an amazing sanctuary of peace and a well-spring of evangelisation and outreach since Peter opened the shop in the Year 2000.

Since then countless numbers of souls have been helped there. People have come back to God, others have received sound teaching from the Catechism to help them overcome false teaching, and many have been encouraged and helped with all manner of problems and trials. Peter has also had some famous visitors and a variety of clergy and seminarians from far and wide.

Every day Peter prays the Chaplet of Divine Mercy with whoever is in the shop at the Hour of Mercy -3pm. He also has a book for people to put down names to be included in the prayers. All new visitors receive a print of the Divine Mercy image with a sheet explaining the devotion.

Peter is a true 'Apostle of Mercy' who can relate to the people of Liverpool because of his top notch 'scouse humour', great sense of fun, what-you-see-is-what-you-get honesty, and a down to earth approach. And of course, he also knows the deep Mercy of Jesus Christ working powerfully in his own life.

For a long time Peter had been away from the Catholic Church. In fact, on the site where the Divine Mercy shop now stands, there used to be a night club where Peter used to dance the night away in the days when he was an Andrew Ridgley look-a-like! It was not unheard of for Peter to need carrying out of the place.

And then in 1995 Jesus hit him with a massive conversion experience! After several years of spiritual growth and discernment he sensed the call to open the Divine Mercy shop in 2000.

And every year on the great Feast of Divine Mercy, Peter has hosted a day of devotions in a parish in Liverpool with a number of priests on hand to hear confessions. The books from the shop, containing the names and prayer intentions from the year, are placed before the altar and included in the intentions of the day.

Here he is now with the Divine Mercy image in the Sacred Heart chapel at Our Lady, Star of the Sea in Seaforth. Living proof that growing closer to God can take years off you!

This year the Feast of Divine Mercy will be celebrated in this beautiful church. Jesus said to St. Faustina that 'the soul that will go to Confession on that day will receive such an outpouring of Divine Mercy that it will be like a second Baptism.'